Surfacing Ch. 04

There was a frustrated exhale of air and I heard a few metal locks and chains being undone before Gavin opened his door just wide enough for his face, an odd piece of chain allowing only that width. He peered down at me with small, black eyes above sunken cheeks and pronounced cheekbones. I realized he was taller than he made himself out to be around the others; he had been slouching, but now had to stand straighter to keep the door secure against me. He was frowning, of course, though without his hood covering his head, his dark hair looked both longer and more unkempt than I'd first thought. He waited for me to speak.

Apparently I wasn't being invited inside.

"How many years aged are you?" I asked.

His expression hardly changed, though I heard the touch of disbelieve in his tone. "That's what you came to ask?"

"As good as any other, is it not?"

Gavin stared at me; I was not sure what he may have been thinking, but he answered the question. "Twenty-six."

"And your Master?"

The apprentice shrugged. "Perhaps around seventy. How old are you?"

I smiled a bit. "One hundred years."

He blinked slowly, taking a moment to absorb that. "About one hundred, or—?"

"No, exactly."

The tall but ugly Human grunted softly. "Interesting you keep track after so many."

So many? Only my first century alive? That put Rausery's words in perspective.

"How much time have you been here?" I asked.

"How many questions do you have planned?" he replied deadpan. "Shall I get a stool?"

My smile grew a bit. "You are not curious enough to talk?"

"Not really. Two days on the road tends to sap my enthusiasm for conversation."

I had the oddest feeling that I would prefer Gavin's company to Sarilis. I thought I knew why, too, and it had to do with what Rausery had said about the neutral ones being the ones to bargain with.

I may have just found my first truly neutral Human. Dare I hope he was educated as his Master in the history of this world, if not as practiced in his magic?

I tried to peek behind him to see inside his quarters, looking for a hint how he spent his time, but I had to rise on my toes a bit and he eased the door to a bare slit in response, leaving me looking at only one eye and a corner of his mouth as the chain slackened.

"Are you done?"

"For now," I said. "Thank you for the stew, apprentice, it was tasty."

He nodded once and closed the door with a jangle of iron. I heard the other locks thrown on the other side.

I left then to return to the stairs and continue up. I did not hear any voices downstairs and figured they had sorted out their disagreements. Fortunately, I crossed paths with none of them as I found my room: small, round, and a bit drafty with a ragged tapestry trying courageously to block the air outside. I tested the two locks on my own door before securing them and sighed at the relative quiet.

There was a chair next to a wobbly table that I'd probably sit in rather than use the stained cot on one side. This wasn't bad, as I'd been sleeping outdoors for most of the past ten days since I'd left Rausery at the cave, and on hard stone for weeks before that. Not quite as cozy as Tamuril's place, but one took what one could get.

I gave the room a thorough search first, but I found nothing and did not sense anything beyond the ley lines intersecting—a louder whine which I had to work to block out or I'd never sleep—and soon I settled in the chair with spine straight and head balanced as I closed my eyes and began to meditate. My spiders were still in place beneath my loose braid.

I'd wake before the night was through and invite the Necromancer's company, if he did not do the same first.

******

The invitation came from him first, and the old goat was trying to impress me. Or intimidate me. I wasn't quite sure which, but I was sure that my messenger was one of the better examples of necromancy that Sarilis might have sent to my door.

Why? It knocked quietly and grunted softly as if inquiring of my state of readiness. The scent alone told me what to expect even as I'd been awake the moment my spiders and I both heard the shuffle and felt the presence that was...

...wrong?

Maybe. Or maybe just..."other." Something definitely not alive as I understood living to be.

I would have been foolish to swing wide the door when I couldn't truly assume the messenger meant me no harm. One of the locks on the door was a chain with a bolt at one end that caught in an iron loop secured to the frame. It allowed the door to be opened while not "unlocked" and required no key or command word.

I thought the mechanism rather simply ingenious. I'd seen one at Gavin's door, too, and realized now that, if I had truly wanted inside Gavin's room, I would not have been able to force my way in simply by shoving at the door and knocking him back. A good thing I did not typically operate that way.

The locks had also been more recently installed, and the height was certainly not dwarf-height. It did imply things could come wandering in uninvited as one worked or slept. I opened it now similar to how Gavin had, ready to jump back or slam the door closed at a wrong move.

What looked back at me didn't move, only stared down at me.

My messenger had once been Human male and had the general appearance of a guard, its hair a rather dirty-looking blonde while the eyes, once blue perhaps but now blood-shot and eerily pale. It wore a moderately well-preserved outfit of leather armor and a stout sword, naked and somehow otherwise held to his belt without a scabbard... Perhaps drawing and sheathing was too much for the thrall to handle?

The guard wore gloves and clothing and I was glad for that, as I noted switches across its windpipe and voice box—likely why it was mute—and blots on the pale, waxy neck and face, like the blood had stopped and settled in the flesh, the skin having lost a degree of resiliency as it sagged lethargically in places, especially beneath the eyes.

I did not really wish to see more of the thrall beneath the trappings of imitated life, as the aura around it was cold and sent a mild nausea through me. And yet...if the raptors and skeletons and unloading servants were any indication...this messenger was one of the better looking and more refined that Sarilis could have sent. Perhaps it was even one of the...newer undead.

It was an odd thought, but I still believed I understood both intended messages as it bowed slightly to me, its spine cracking subtly, and gestured for me to follow with another soft moan in its altered throat.

*Alright, Sarilis, I got it. Impressive.*

I walked behind the guard, trying not to inhale too deeply, returning to the ground floor of the tower and moving across toward the kitchen, which was large but not heavily used. If Gavin normally prepared real food for only two bodies that were still required to eat, then that made sense. The fire at the hearth was banked and all the bowls from dinner still needed washing.

There was a hall beyond the kitchen that seemed to be heading farther back into the mountain than the Tower's width implied; there were no windows and it was only sparingly lit. I would have preferred no light at all, as my inborn senses quickly came alive as I sensed the weight of the earth above me once again, but while Sarilis did not keep a bright and cheery home, he still required light by which to see.

There were small doors on each side—dwarf-sized and probably not used much by the dust collected at the bases—likely the servants quarters once upon a time. The guard placed its hand upon the slightly larger door at the end of the hall—eighth down on the right—waiting a few moments before I felt a pulse of something, an acknowledgement perhaps, and then it opened the door, revealing a stone staircase with perfectly level steps. Something that seemed a much newer addition was the hand rail along the left side.

I did not have a way out other than how I came in, should I go down there...but there had been many such similar times in the Underdark with stone all around, where it came down to who acted first. I was curious and willing to bet Sarilis wasn't looking to kill me right off—though I had to be prepared for the attempt all the same. I felt a deep-seated surety that I could discover the alternate exit as well, because there had to be one for the paranoid, which prodded me to follow the thrall belowground.

Sarilis's workshop had the traits of nearly every mage I'd ever known—scrolls, powders, vials, and books on every level surface—but the tools of his particular trade weren't typical of those in the Wizard's Tower back home. I noted saws, blades, surgical tools, vices, shovels, pickaxes, and...was that dried sinew and tanned patches of skin hanging side-by-side with the bouquets of herbs? This was in addition to the glass jars tucked in rows on a large set of shelves way in the back...from where I stood, I guessed they contained suspension fluids with various pieces of flesh and anatomy. Spell components and...spare parts, just as Rausery had said.

The physical details did not even cover the foreign and unsettling energy that abounded in this place. I sensed no wards per se, but there was more in here than a mere Human's dawdling hobby. I trusted my instincts and my observance of Sarilis's body language as he had his back to me—he felt safe here.

Yes, I was motivated to play this well and not make any brash moves. The consequences of failure would be particularly gruesome and damning. My last thought of catching up to Tamuril vanished while standing on the Necromancer's threshold. I stepped through the doorway, standing on the landing with three steps yet to go.

"Welcome, my lovely," he said before turning around on one of three or four stools. He grinned to show the gap in the yellow teeth on his left side again. "Care to close the door behind you, dark angel? There are more guests than usual in this place tonight and voices carry."

"Fond of your endearments, I see," I said with a small smile and calm air as I closed the door, noticing that it did not physically lock. I looked about as I came off the steps, as I did not enjoy being such a high, clear target.

"Very nice lab, death mage. I've never seen the like."

"Why, thank you!" he said with an enthusiasm that belied his apparent advanced age. He laughed. "Your...ahm, what was it you said, 'Elder'...which I take to be my dear Rausery?"

I nodded.

"And to which dark messenger do I have the honor of speaking this night?" he said, a bit grander than it needed to be. "Come, you know my name. It is only polite."

That is was. "My name is Sirana."

He looked quite happy. "Ahhh, I love it. Well, Sirrannna, back to you Elder... Yes, she first commented on the smell."

Oh, there was the smell, alright. Old blood and mold, rust, iron, some kind of bitter chemical solution I couldn't identify but would bet one of my daggers that it was for preserving flesh to keep it from rotting...

"I understand your delicate ears and cute little noses have been bred to be so sensitive deep down below without your sight, hm?"

I didn't comment on my sight as Sarilis gestured for the guard to come fully off the stairs and toward him. He twirled his finger and the thrall turned in place as if to give the old man a view of every side. "Mmm, no misunderstandings, I see. I take it Sir Cullen behaved himself?"

I smiled. "Stared and bowed and led. I am not the jittery sort."

He stroked his scruffy, grayish jaw. "You have familiarity with my 'sort,' perhaps?"

"I know that which I need."

"Ah! Preparation. Excellent. Then you were sent here."

"I was."

"Most curious timing. I must assume your queen has been watching somehow. What is her interest in all this?"

How tacitly vague.

"I could not claim to know all Her interests, but one is your knowledge, Sarilis. She sent me to learn from you."

He cocked one gray, bushy eyebrow. "Learn what, precisely?" Then he gave me a teasing smile. "I already have an apprentice, useless as he is and tempting as you may be in his place. It would certainly improve the charm around here."

I huffed a breathy laugh and shook my head once. "You know that would not be the case. But you have news and plans of your own, just as before. Even remote as you are, your knowledge of the conflicts is more recent than my Elder's."

Were his baggy, icy eyes not so small, relatively speaking, I would not think his narrowing them could change so much of his gaze. He looked like an overly-hairy, blind cave golem for a second.

"The conflicts," he enunciated.

"Twenty years ago the Ma'ab were not in this area. Now two at your table discuss 'changing winds' and armies of terror. That confirms the nearby war for me. How are you involved?"

Sarilis grinned again. "Meaning...you did not come up here with specific plans for it, Sirana?"

"If you wish to believe that," I smiled back, and it seemed he believed otherwise at my expression.

"Eight legs spinning webs, but who knows where the other seven are, hm?" Sarilis murmured with a smirk, wiping a palm on the dark blue fabric of his robe.

Even was I not bluffing as much as he was, that was the essence of our race and I could not help but agree.

"Were you genuine in wanting my help with your task?" I asked.

"You are here. I know you increase the chance of success," he said. "Were you here for something else, my dear?"

"Information on several things," I said.

"Name them. We may bargain, and I expect nothing less."

"The new location of the Warpstone Cult you helped oust twenty years ago?" I tried.

His brows rose up. "Hm. I was not aware they had swelled up again. Quite the annoying pustule. Is it ready to burst once again?"

I shrugged. "If I knew where, I would know that. The homestone was not destroyed, however."

Sarilis grunted and shifted his eyes a bit. "Odd. Your Elder took care of that herself."

"How so?"

"She could handle the blessed water." The Necromancer chuckled. "I do not care for the stuff myself."

I decided to move on; I would not be able to differentiate fact from fiction if he started telling me a tale and it would be a waste of time. "If not that, then what of the mercenary guild you tend to hire from? How would one get in contact with them?"

"Ah...I do not tend to find men from a guild," Sarilis said, both amused and oddly nervous. "If you mean the eastern taskers for hire... they do not deal with the likes of me."

"Because you tend to 'adopt' them rather than paying them?" I looked over at "Sir Cullen" standing still and not so much as breathing at a right angle to me, closer than I would have liked but reasonable to perform its function.

Sarilis grinned widely. "Is it that obvious, or did Rausery tell you?"

"So this 'eastern' guild does not like you."

"Let us say I would avoid crossing them for a few fresh bodies. Better that they ignore me. In any case, I weed out some of their non-guild competition." He took a moment to catch his breath and chuckled. "So, you wish to contact them for some reason?"

"One of many possibilities," I said. "If you do not know how—"

Sarilis grunted. "Not directly, but it is usually someone who knows another in such things."

"Do you know one who knows another?"

"Perhaps, perhaps not. People die, after all. I'm disappointed that none of this has to do with me—"

"What of the Ma'ab going to Manalar?" I asked.

This was crossing the queen's vague vision with Tamuril's story, and with the presence of Kurn and Castis. I watched Sarilis's face as closely as before. I was more glad than I would show when I saw recognition at last, even appeasement of his complaint.

"Mm. Well, yes, I have some interest in that, but you already know this if you were sent to help." He narrowed his eyes again. "Which makes me think that wasn't what it was at all. A pity. Care to give a little more back, my dark angel? I have been generous thus far."

"We see a convergence at that point, Sarilis, but many ways it could yet go," I answered, pulling inspiration from Auslan of all others right now.

"Interesting. How would your kind like it to go, Sirana?"

"For me, myself alone," I smiled. "I'd wish the Ma'ab to fail."

"Unusually straightforward."

"Better than my queen's answer."

Sarilis laughed aloud, similarly to how he had when he first saw me. At last, the old man braced himself against his work bench—his palm perilously close to a black-stained cleaver—and pushed himself to his feet. He came toward me on soft-wrapped feet.

This whole time, he had allowed me to stand near the door, not asking me to sit, not suggesting I move farther into the room. He came around his several restraining tablets and closed the distance. I remained where I stood, checking around me briefly that I wasn't too close to things that could fall on me or be flung at me, nothing below me. The guard stood dead silent as ever.

"My dear Sirana," he said in his reedy voice, softer now that he didn't have to project across the lab.

I could count the liver spots and smell his breath, which wasn't pleasant.

He watched me for a few moments, and when I said nothing more, "You are a young one, aren't you? Younger than Rausery, certainly."

"But older than you, Sarilis."

He grinned. "In total sunsets, I grant you. You've not felt your mortality the way I have, though. Different from surviving battle, different from recovering from a mortal wound. You feel your body breaking down, changing how it creates and shifts its energy, not under your direct control but like it is beneath the control of the sun every time it passes. You wonder how bad it will get every time you feel a new ache or see a new bump in your skin, or cannot lift the same box from even ten years earlier. You do not know this."

I shook my head slowly, willing to hear out his point. If he had one.

"Rausery did not feel it so acutely, but she at least knew. She had a few individual, gold strands in her hair...were those indicative of her age, Sirana? How long had she lived when I knew her?"

I shrugged. "About seven centuries."

His eyebrows rose up. "Astonishing. And... how long can your race live?"

I realized something then that I didn't know. We usually died of conflict, poison, or sacrifice. No one I knew ever thought about death coming in any other way. None I knew would want to wither away like a shrinking, brittle mushroom exposed to direct sunlight.

"Have none of you died, then?" he asked, and I read that he did not believe that so I shouldn't try to bluff him. "I know you bleed."

"We can die. We are usually killed."

"And the eldest of you?"

"The queen. I do not know Her age."

"Fascinating," he said. "Then do tell me, young one, why you want the Ma'ab to fail, should they attack Manalar?"

Because they stole one of us, and may still possess a half-blood that does not belong to them. It was a pretty simple reason, but not one I wanted to share.

"Because Kurn has poor manners," I smiled.

I dared to think Sarilis looked surprised for an instant before he cackled happily. "Oh...oh my dear, dark elf...I think I like your whimsy. Keep your secret, then, but know our little group shares a goal."

I frowned. "Kurn and Castis wish the Ma'ab to fail? Their own race?"

Sarilis flipped a hand, "That posh about 'winds of change'...hahaha! Oh, those two were exiled, I dare say for having 'poor manners,' and have a burr beneath their saddle. Kurn has some plan of recruiting deserters once the army breaks, but that is less my concern than the aim that neither side holds that castle at the end of the day."

"Why?"

Sarilis had a perfectly ghoulish expression. "Secrets, my dear, secrets. I've given you a free one. I'm always open for business on more."